Winter naval warfare: wider implications
WINTER OPERATIONS
13
waters in winter when, in February 1640, Oquendo escaped from Dunkirk for
Spain with the remnants of his defeated fleet.37
Besides the naval warfare issues above, why does this problem matter? The even
tual Dutch victory in 1667 was ultimately due to relative economic conditions:
whilst the rival fleets fought three huge battles but could not achieve a strategic
final blow, in the long-term the Dutch war against British trade was more success
ful than British efforts against Dutch commerce; the Dutch were more resilient.
After two years of war, the Dutch were able to send out another huge fleet in 1667;
the exhausted British were unable to prepare a full fleet. So we need to understand
the economy as it related to the war at sea and trade, and we cannot do this unless
we understand what the navy was doing for the whole war, and how this relates to
other shipping, both friendly and enemy. Bruijn outlined the lengthy shipping
embargoes that were laid in order to persuade sailors to join the Dutch navy -
trade, the life blood of the Republic, was stopped: yet this has not sufficiently
penetrated Dutch historiography this deliberate state action still remains un
accounted for in recent studies that examine Dutch wartime trade and fisheries
during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.38
With privateers, the current picture is of the navy withdrawing to its bases at some
point in the autumn, leaving the war to be conducted by privateers: as with the
navy, the operational period for privateering is only sketched in general terms.
Whilst Bruijn has determined the relative 'prize count of the navy and privateers,
it is not clear at what time of the year the navy's prizes were taken.39 Should these
have been mostly taken during the winter, it would show that the navy switched
from full battle fleet strategy in the campaign season' to, during the winter, guerre
de course - possibly combined with trade protection (convoys) in 1665-1666
(when some embargoes were briefly lifted and some trade flowed again) as well
as (perhaps) a battlefleet strategy on a smaller scale. Privateers would naturally have
made use of the protection and diversion offered by the presence of friendly major
naval units, so that these helped to facilitate privateering (in home waters at least).
Specifically on the Zeeland admiralty, one of the weaker four of the five
(Amsterdam dominated), there is a nebulous but tangible (and unfair) perception
that they were 'always late' in joining the summer campaigns largely based on
examples in June 1667 and May 1672, and not unconnected with their being
furthest from the usual summer fleet rendezvous at the Texel. More concrete is
their usual exclusion from the position of fleet commander-in-chief, prompted by
Holland refusal to submit to Zeeland command.7" We shall see that the Zeelanders
punched above their weight' during winter: a Zeelander commanded the winter
fleet, and the fleet rendezvous was in the Wielings, not at the Texel or Goeree. The
politics of how they were able to achieve these changes is, unfortunately, beyond
our scope here.41 Some light, however, can be shed on the workings and perform
ance of a Dutch decentralised naval administration usually regarded as 'ram
shackle'.42
